


odhrærir

by GimmeBeans



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Drabble Collection, FFxivWrite 2020, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tumblr: FFXIVWrite 2020
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26249011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GimmeBeans/pseuds/GimmeBeans
Summary: A collection of fic(lets) based on prompts from the FFXIV Write 2020 challenge!Any WoLs in this collection are either mine or my friends.Each one piece will vary in terms of length/content/etc., so let's just have fun with it.
Kudos: 8





	1. Crux

**Author's Note:**

> The Warrior of Light has a conversation with Urianger after Malikah's Well when she realizes how little time she has left.  
> Finding a way to hold on is its own kind of torture.

Her hands feel stiff - what was this, the fourth Warden to lose its light to her? It hurt worse than the others, burned in her more than the rest, like a hot knife slipped through the platemail and cauterizing her lungs. Pain was no stranger in her life, but this was different. Just as debilitating as when the ceruleum burned into her back flares up, but deeper - in her own soul.

And it wouldn’t leave. Gods, it wouldn’t leave.

“Urianger.” Her body rests heavily against the door frame, sweat beading around her brow as she wills herself to move. She knew it from the start, but even as she was so willing to sacrifice herself she never let go of that rage she grasped upon her arrival to the First. “This is going to kill me.”

No more. No more.

Urianger stares at her in that calculating way of his. Even in her delirium she could tell he didn’t want to cave, didn’t want to show his hand. More than that, the weight of his guilt cast shadows in his eyes and strained his shoulders, his knuckles. 

It’s killing them both.

“Thou art justified in thine anger.” He picks his words from a selection and carefully sets them down in front of her. Insufferable. “Yet I can only ask for thy trust.”

Her body lurches forward without her consent - she towers over him. She grits her teeth and clenches her fist, fighting with everything in her to keep them at her sides. An overabundance of light and a potent, vocal Darkside. How fitting that she sits firmly in the middle, barely holding onto herself, at risk of careening too deeply into either.

“ _Trust_ you? Have I not done that each time you’ve rigged the board? I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t!” It’s in these moments Urianger reminds her of her brother in the worst possible way. Fitting that he would hold the blade. “You may like to torture yourself by gambling with lives that aren’t yours, but some of us don’t have that liberty.” She has a family. A daughter. She would give so much to see them live. “Greater good be damned, you scheme and sacrifice for a solution and then spend your life in penitence, and for what? So you can do it all over again?”

It’s painful to watch, time and again he makes himself a villain. Doesn’t he know she can see it? He isn’t made to carry those sins, no matter how much he convinces himself otherwise. He feels too much guilt for questions he refuses to answer, for the sheer fact that he can’t hold onto everything. If he would just talk to her, she could-

More burning. Sharp, sharp burning in her lungs. Her shoulders shake as her whole body is wracked with gasping coughs. 

Urianger raises a hand as if to comfort her, then curls his fingers inwards and brings it back to his side, unable to meet her gaze. 

“Clíona, I…” He hesitates and shakes his head, alert even with the bags under his eyes. “That thou hast spoken to me with such candor is more reassuring than thou knoweth. I cannot give thee more than what hath already been given: mine solemn promise to see thee safely home.”

It’s not like she could ask for anything more, right?

“I know you have a solution,” she croaks. “You’re too sharp not to.” Labored breathing gradually gives way to a natural rhythm. “I know you’ve worried yourself sick over the possibilities, good and bad. Spread yourself thin over all the possible ways I could die. You’re too _anxious_ not to.” What a pair they were. Her real brother at least had the decency to try and kill her on purpose, but it seems that she and Urianger were destined to agonize over all the ways they could play chicken with death.

“I have always trusted you, though you find more and more inventive ways to test that.” Her shoulders rise and fall with a measured breath. “I’ll keep going. Not for you. Not for the Exarch, or the people of the First. You’re betting on me with my soul and I intend to keep it. Should this fail, it will be no fault of mine.” When she looks at him now, it’s clear she isn’t the only one warning him. “But I’d be lying if there isn’t a part of me that hopes you’re wrong, just so I can collect on the wager in my last moments of clarity.”


	2. Sway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lyna helps her partner with the finer details of a traditional Voeburtite dance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day two of the ffxivwrite 2020 challenge!  
> This Coyote isn't the Warrior of Light, but a Drahn Bard whose ancestors sought asylum in the Crystarium in the wake of the Flood.

Step- two, three - Step- two, three.

She keeps time with the metronome even though her feet refuse to move properly. Something ironic about a musician being unable to move in even the simplest way. Coyote sighs and resets her position, shaking out her limbs in some hope of drumming up a speck of coordination. It didn’t help that all she had to go on for choreography was paintings and poorly-preserved written accounts; that she managed to glean even this much from the remains of Voeburtite scripts is an accomplishment, in her mind.

Even still, with all of her furniture pushed to the walls of the room and a sad excuse for a mirror set up beside her, she can’t help but imagine how she looks to an outsider.

Okay. Time to try again.

Step- two, three. Step- two, three.

“You look ridiculous.” Lyna nods at her with a bemused expression. “I hope you had not intended to impress me with this.”

“My apologies, dear.” Coyote rests her hands on her hips and shakes her head. “You’ve caught me in the unforgivable act of butchering your art.”

“Mayhap I should try my hand with your lute as revenge?” With the door shut behind her, Lyna closes the space between them in a few easy steps. 

Coyote dips her head to the side and motions to the papers spread across her table. “Or you could humor me with your expertise. I fear the intricacies elude me - and that my preference for watching you as I play has done little for my own skill.” She follows Lyna to the table, snaking her arm around her waist and leaning into her side. “Though I hardly see that as a problem.”

Lyna’s arm wraps around Coyote’s shoulders as her other hand ghosts over the papers, her ears flicking backwards as she pours over the information on the sheets. “It seems you had the right idea, but…” She chuckles when she looks back to Coyote. “Do you remember the time you tried to show me the dance your mother taught you?”

Coyote groans and covers her face, “When I knocked the glasses off of my table with my tail?” Her tail swishes from side to side now - and somehow this was the least embarrassing story from her early attempts at courtship.

“Yes.” Lyna gently removes Coyote’s hand from her face and holds it in her own. “I think this is similar to that, but slower. And with two people, of course.” She slides her hand down to Coyote’s mid-back and guides her back to the center of the room. “Could you tell me more about how you found these?”

“Sparing you the more harrowing details, the Fuath finally let me into some of the deeper reaches of the lake’s ruins.” It took months of bartering, and it was only until she took one by the shoulders and spun in the water like a beast that they finally relented (under the condition that she taught _them_ how to death roll, of course). Horrible, horrible creatures...that she now had an understanding with. “Between that and the Nu Mou recognizing the ring my parents left behind, I was able to scrounge up some of these writings.”

“It’s my understanding that the Fuath are the least pleasant of the Fae.” Lyna takes Coyote’s other hand and places it on her waist, adjusting her stance to account for their difference in height. “You didn’t enter into any strange pacts, did you?”

“No, of course not.” Coyote purposely bumps her horns against Lyna’s arm. “I’m far more careful than that. Besides, I was going to say…” She looks down at Lyna’s feet to make sure that her own are in the right position. “That I was hoping to have this solved before you saw me again, so I could show it to you. But…”

She falls in step with Lyna.

Allows her body to relax against Lyna’s hands as they glide about the room.

Be it song or research, it was always easier when Lyna was with her. 

Lyna presses her forehead against Coyote’s and pulls her closer, swaying with the metronome. “But?”

“Sharing it with you like this is much better.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! you can find me on twitter @rippstik, and be sure to keep an eye on the #ffxivwrite2020 tag on twitter and tumblr!


	3. Muster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fray watches the Warrior of Darkness's final confrontation with Hades.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 3 of the ffxivwrite 2020 challenge!  
> i wanted to do something a little experimental with this one.

You don’t remember when you first felt it - chances are it’s been there ever since you picked up that crystal and let it in. Settled a score with it in Coerthas and accepted its presence. Or maybe it’s here for something else, something new. Like ages ago in Gyr Abania, on that quest to reclaim your aether from fragmented memories. 

Memories of your anger. Your pity. Your love.

_Think of me..._

Hades stands before us, burning with ancient grief. Would those he loved and lost, if he could live and breathe with them again, really make him whole? His shades do not satisfy, convincing though they are. Would real be real _enough_? 

He bears the weight of an archaic promise to carry the torch of the future for his Elysium and has suffered the loneliness of such an oath. What he doesn’t realize is that we know the truth of it. What’s lost may be returned, but we know the hollowness it brings. 

And were it not for the light bursting through the cracks in your soul, you might feel nostalgic for that night in Gyr Abania where we swore to live for our loved ones, who need us now more than ever. To never lose sight of the future. These things become our strength, and they make us whole.

Yes. You, too, have loved and lost. Your hands are not clean, nor will they ever be.

But you must keep going.

And sometimes, to keep going means to lose again - though only in the way you lost me. Ardbert is in good company.

Maybe you caught sight of me beside you as you cleared the sin from your lungs and plunged towards Hades. It isn’t the same, of course. There’s so much I would tell you if it were. 

What fools we are, unable to forsake the old bastard. You can’t feel his face through your gauntlets, and you hang your head as yet another soul fades from your hands. You will remember him.

And when it all seems too much...

**Slow down. It’s okay.**

**You aren’t in this world alone.**

Think of us, and we will be your strength.


	4. Clinch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clíona shows her friend the basics of tanking, and holds fast to two simple tenants:  
> \- Be the sexiest motherfucker in the room.  
> \- Antagonize the person you're trying to teach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sayo is an au ra/hrothgar samurai and belongs to @lezbionage (twitter)! thanks for letting me use your lizard i love the bitch

Dust kicks up around them when Sayo hits the ground, and even she can’t help but hiss at the way her elbows sting from the repeated battering. Dirty and raw from getting thrown time and again and all she has to show for it is a light brown footprint square on Clíona’s gut.

“That was better. You’re getting the hang of this.” Clíona turns her altered gunblade around in her hand. When Sayo showed interest in some more defense-heavy combat, Clíona was glad to teach her. She had minimal experience with Gunblades, herself, but far be it from her to ignore an opportunity to learn and teach in equal measure. “But you’re still too focused on hurting me.” She clicks her tongue and shakes her hand after touching the cylinder. “I thought we worked past that? Or did I piss you off again?”

Sayo groans and pushes herself off of the ground. “If you don’t shut up, you will.” She brushes the soil from her shirt and gets back into position. Frustration washed over her each time Clíona blocked or parried an attack. That she took to a new style so quickly (and she can’t even use most of the skills!) dug under her skin worse than when she actually _ tried _ to get a rise from Sayo. “Let’s just keep going.”

There it is, that dissecting gaze. Sayo’s known her long enough to know that Clíona just looks at people like that, but that doesn’t make it any less unnerving or irritating when it’s directed at her. Her tail slaps the ground as it flicks back and forth. “What is it?”

Clíona looks her over once more and shrugs. “Nothing, really.” She motions to the trees that shade the outskirts of the training ring. “I was just thinking it may be time for us to take a break.”

“I don’t need a break,” Sayo spits back, “I need to get this down.” She had the jobstone. She had Radovan teaching her the details specific to Gunbreaking. So why was this so damn hard? She grips her gunblade’s handle so hard her knuckles turn white.

Clíona sheathes hers and crosses her arms. “All you’ll get is knocked in the dirt again. You’re too tense to continue.”

“I’m not tense!” Sayo’s voice is a low growl and all of the scales on her body begin to rise alongside her ire. “If I can’t even do something as simple as this, then what’s the godsdamned point? Not all of us can switch from one style to another so easily.” 

“That so?” Clíona tilts her head and quirks an eyebrow. After a moment’s thought, she closes her eyes and nods. “I’ll consider that progress. Look,” she quickly closes the distance between them and puts a hand on Sayo’s shoulder, applying more and more pressure the more resistance she’s given, “you think that’s good? You’re mad at yourself, sure, but do you think you can keep someone safe like that?”

Sayo pushes Clíona’s hand off of her shoulder. “I’ve been doing that already.”

“But this is different.” Clíona then shoves her, hard, and it’s enough to knock Sayo out of her stance. “You’re not just charging in with your katana and beating the shit out of someone. You have a responsibility to Shiori, to me, to hold the enemy’s attention and to  _ stay alive _ .”

Sayo shifts herself back into position and swings the blade at Clíona.

The blunt edge makes a loud, dull thud against her thickly padded practice gear. 

Clíona grabs Sayo’s wrist with a vice grip and steps into her. “You get that out of your system? Are you good now?” She keeps her voice low, throaty and dry from the dust and heat. “You can’t protect anyone if you’re dead. I want you to focus on living.”

As soon as Clíona’s hold loosens, Sayo pulls away to put space between them and refuses to meet her gaze. 

Clíona sighs and shakes her head. “Fine, let’s change the method. Using the same style as you clearly isn’t helping.” She walks to the weapon rack near the entrance to the ring and sets her gunblade on it. Her hand hovers over her greatsword, fingers ghosting the grip almost methodically - tempting, but. She lives this. It would do nothing for Sayo’s growth to face Clíona where she’s most comfortable. 

She chooses her lance instead. 

“You need to learn to fight defensively, so I’ll give you no choice but to defend yourself.” The pole is familiar in her hands, and a welcome change after wielding a greatsword for so long. Clíona can’t help but grin as she walks back to Sayo. “The rules are the same as before - no time limit, but if I land more than three hits, you’re out. If you’re able to knock me down, disarm me, or otherwise incapacitate me, you win. Either way, once we finish, we’re taking a break for lunch.”

“It’s been a while since you’ve taken that out.” Sayo’s eye narrows as she readies herself. Seeing that lance brought back some of the worst - and, admittedly, some of the best - memories of her time in Ishgard. “You still know how to use it, right?”

“Feeling nostalgic, are we? Don’t worry, I’d never let myself get rusty.” Clíona sinks into form like it’s her second skin. “And there’s no fun in going easy on you.” She doesn’t wait for a reply before she launches herself into the air.

Sayo just manages to deflect the blow from above, pushing back against the lance and feeling the cartridge whirr through the grip.

Clíona lands closeby, brings her lance in and around for a wide blow.

Sayo blocks it, though the force rattles her teeth in her head.

“You have barriers,” Clíona grunts, closing her stance and shifting her feet as she thrusts forward. “Use them. You’re working too hard without them.”

Sayo pulls the trigger and a blast of aether surrounds her - but all it does is soften the next blow as the lance connects with her leg.

“Damn it!” Sayo quickly adjusts her position to block the next attack.

“It isn’t over yet.” Clíona swings the lance upwards, forcing Sayo to strafe backwards and reset her stance. 

Another swell of aether surrounds her as Clíona presses the attack - no, a feint. Sayo swings the blade around and parries it, taking the opportunity to get within Clíona’s stance and sweep her legs.

“That was good!” Clíona laughs as she stumbles backwards, quickly steadying herself and coming back with another side-swipe. “But you’ll have to do better than that!”

The gunblade is only heavy when she rests it over her shoulders - following through with each blow and letting the momentum flow from one motion to the next is surprisingly easier, though Sayo can only attribute that to the adrenaline pulsing at the base of her skull. 

Clíona launches herself into the air again, and this time Sayo’s ready. She pushes back against the lance, bracing the gunblade with both hands and activating a cartridge for the extra push.

Clíona lands some few feet away, and Sayo fires off a shot towards her before she can recover her stance. 

“Better!” Clíona’s eyes are bright and sharp when Sayo’s blade connects with the length of the lance.

The cartridge whirrs hot and loud in the cylinder. If she pushes now, she can break through Clíona’s defenses-

The blast from her blade isn’t enough to completely disarm Clíona, but it forces her into an awkward position. Sayo ducks low and swings the blade around. It’s a more aggressive strategy, but she wouldn’t get anywhere if she just stood still and took each hit. 

Clíona’s feet skid in the dirt in a hasty attempt to dodge the blow, and just as she starts to get back into her stance, Sayo gets inside and breaks it open with a shoulder-check. Clíona digs her heels in and pivots, sending Sayo stumbling past her and adding insult to injury by tapping Sayo’s shoulder with the lance head. 

“That’s two.” Clíona rolls her neck and leans against her lance. “But you almost had me. I may actually be sore in the morning.”

Sayo can feel her hair sticking to the back of her neck, her heart pounding in her chest. She takes a deep breath, adjusts her grip, and nods to Clíona.

Clíona has no choice but to oblige. She jumps into the air and brings her lance down upon Sayo’s blade, then pushes off and lands back where she started. It’s a little rude, and maybe the tiniest bit unfair, but she wasn’t going to make this easy.

It’s slower, this time. They circle each other and now Clíona’s attacks are more calculated, as if everything before this was just a warmup.

Sayo prefers it this way - each exchange has its own rhythm, and she keeps pace with ease. The air reeks of spent cartridges and aether - a sort of metallic petrichor that clings to her nose and paints the air. It was damn near a dance with its give and take; it was only a matter of being the one to lead instead of follow.

Clíona grunts when her lance glances off of Sayo’s blade, and she quickly shifts her stance to disengage with a backwards jump. Sayo digs her feet into the ground and pushes off, using the momentum from her gunblade to cover the distance between them and meet Clíona right as she lands with a knee to the chest, knocking her to the ground. She quickly stabs her gunblade into the dirt to stop them from sliding into the railing, sharp edge digging into Clíona’s shoulder gear.

The lance clatters down beside them.

Clíona’s chest heaves under her knee.

“Well done.” Clíona coughs as she brings her hand up to Sayo’s blade. “Now you just have to do it again.”

Sayo digs her knee deeper into Clíona's chest in response, and all she gets back is some strained laughter.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! you can find me on twitter @rippstik, and be sure to keep an eye on the #ffxivwrite2020 tag on twitter and tumblr!


End file.
